Silver Hair, Golden Crown
by cocoalover1956
Summary: She was the blood of the dragon, but even a queen is still just a woman after all.


After Rhaegar had been born in the inferno of Summerhall, Rhaella decided that birthing a child was an experience she had no desire to repeat. She had given her brother a male heir, a son who was a both strong and clever. Yet, Aerys was insistent they have another child, a spare should anything befall his heir. Though she was queen, Rhaella was in no position to argue with her king. Seventeen and proven fertile, it was her duty to give her king heirs and Rhaella always did her duty.

Her second pregnancy, three years after giving birth, ended in great pain and bloody sheets after only four and half moons. Aerys was at her side as soon he had gotten word of the tragedy. He hold her as she wept, petting her hair and singing softly to her as he himself cried for their lost child. It was one of the few times she thought she might grow to love him.

She did not conceive for another five years, when in time she bore a daughter for Rhaegar to marry. Where her brother was melancholic and removed from public life, Princess Shaena thrived on attention and flattery. She was edger to attend every feast, ball or tourney, even from the time she was just a babe. Though born with the fair skin and silver hair of the Targaryens, her eyes were dark-brown, almost black, like those of her great-grandmother Bertha Blackwood. To enhance the contrast, Aerys would have her dressed in black, and soon she was known as the Ermine Princess.

Rhaegar, being eight years older, had little time for his sister, though he did not lack affection for her. He preferred his books, letters and swordplay to entertaining a girl almost a decade his junior. There were days when Rhaella wished she could understand her eldest child. He confided in her little, unlike Shaena who came running to her with every little complaint. Instead, she learned, Rhaegar would write to his great-great-uncle of his troubles. Aemon, the elder brother of her grandfather, was a maester in the Night's Watch, gone thousands of leagues away before even she had been born. It hurt to think this man none of them had ever seen, half a stranger, could comfort her son but she could not.

Two years after Shaena, Rhaella gave her husband the second son he craved. The boy was named Daeron, after her uncle who had died fighting the Rat, the Hawk and the Pig, and he was Aerys' greatest joy. While the king had as little understanding of his eldest as Rhaella, he was quick to bond with his third child. The little prince was a summer storm in human skin. Nothing brought him greater amusement than running around the castle, or climbing every surface out of his reach or driving the servants to near madness with his stunts. Friendly and easy to love, Prince Daeron charmed nobles and smallfolk alive.

Rhaella's best friend was Joanna Lannister, who was also a mother. Joanna had married her cousin, Lord Tywin of Casterly Rock, who served Aerys as his Hand. Unlike Rhaella, Joanna was deeply in love with her husband, and so Aerys' strong attraction to her made it difficult for everyone involved. During Joanna's wedding, Aerys remarked that it was unfortunate that Good Queen Alysanne had forbidden the right of a lord to take his pleasures with every newly married woman in his domain; Rhaella and Joanna turned beat red, while Tywin glared at him as though wildfire could come through his eyes. During the bedding ceremony, Aerys had tried to slip his hand between the new bride's legs, further shaming his wife. It was at Rhaella's urging that Joanna left court to return home, away from the king's unwanted desire.

In time, the year before Shaena's birth, Joanna gave birth to two beautiful twins, a daughter named Cersei and son named Jaime. Their close friend Asarelle Martell, the ruling Princess of Dorne, had three children of her own, Doren, Elia and Oberyn. It soon became a favorite daydream of the three childhood friends that their children wed, making them sisters by marriage as well as affection. Rhaegar and Shaena had been betrothed since Shaena was a babe, but Daeron was the right age to marry Cersei and Elia, despite her poor health, was the right age to marry Jaime.

Though he loved all his children, Aerys quickly grew dissatisfied with the size of his brood, and forced Rhaella to give him more children. When Daeron was three, she had Aegon, and two years later Jaehaerys, and two years after that Viserys. Aegon was too much like his eldest brother, quiet, withdrawn and lost in his books. Jaehaerys, a small, sickly child, was timid and a little too eager to please. Viserys was Rhaella's special boy, so sensitive and caring, always asking where she had gotten that bruise and why her shoulders and neck were scratched.

Try as she might, Rhaella could not hold her husband back from the madness that was slowing consuming his wits. She had to convince herself that it could be worse, that he could be burning people alive in his throne room, for all his obsession with fire and blood. She knew for certain he would be worse without the children; he loathed to upset Shaena, his little jewel, or frighten Daeron, his favorite child.

Instead he took his urges to her bedchamber, where he wrote his obsessions on her skin. Though he had six children already, Aerys was greedy for more. His sons needed sisters to wed, he would say, lest they mingle their blood with the daughters of lesser men. Each time he did, Rhaella became more afraid to ask him for a betrothal between Daeron and Cersei Lannister. Her friends were both dead now, Joanna gone in the birthing bed and Asarelle lost at sea, and their marriage pact was buried alongside them.

It was almost eight years after Viserys' birth that Aerys at last gave up on her. Just past forty, there was little hope that she could conceive again. Aerys would not hold festivities for her name-day, a cruel reminder that his beloved Daeron would be forced to settle for a woman of inferior birth. Soon he could not stand the very sight of her, and so had her sent to Dragonstone with only Viserys for company. On the docks he reprimanded her one last time for failing to give her sons suitable brides.

Nine moons pasted before anyone received word of Rhaella Targaryen again. As heavy rain pounded the black stone of Dragonstone and heavy winds threatened to tear the island asunder, Rhaella had given birth to a child, a motherless girl named Daenerys Stormborn.


End file.
